But the king made no answer; and before he could speak again, the moon had climbed above the mighty pillars of the church of the Shadows, and looked in at the great window of the sky.
The shapes had all vanished; and the king, again lifting up his eyes, saw but the wall of his own chamber, on which flickered the Shadow of a Little Child. He looked down, and there, sitting on a stool by the fire, he saw one of his own little ones, waiting to say good night to his father, and go to bed early, that he might rise early too, and be very good and happy all Christmas-day.
And Ralph Rinkelmann rejoiced that he was a man, and not a Shadow.
But as the Shadows vanished they left the sense of song in the king’s brain. And the words of their song must have been something like these:—
“Shadows, Shadows, Shadows all! Shadow birth and funeral! Shadow moons gleam overhead; Over shadow-graves we tread. Shadow-hope lives, grows, and dies. Shadow-love from shadow-eyes Shadow-ward entices on To shadow-words on shadow-stone, Closing up the shadow-tale With a shadow-shadow-wail.
“Shadow-man, thou art a gloom Cast upon a shadow-tomb Through the endless shadow air, From the shadow sitting there, On a moveless shadow-throne, Glooming through the ages gone; North and south, and in and out, East and west, and all about, Flinging Shadows everywhere On the shadow-painted air Shadow-man, thou hast no story; Nothing but a shadow-glory.”